Katie The Cat, 1998-2015

I had to put our Maximum Leader to sleep yesterday. Failing kidneys, a very unhappy pancreas and probable cancer on top of arthritis in her front knees made life worse every day. It was time and she was appreciative.

I'm a bit loopy right now from lack of sleep, emotion and a few other things, but I will say that over the last 16 years, she was a true friend through many tough times.

I remember one time when I was so poor I couldn't heat the house half the time, the outdoor temperature got down into the high 30s. That meant the indoor temperature was in the high 30s, too. She came to bed with me, stared briefly at me with a look of, "You've got to be kidding me" and crawled under all the covers and spent the night snuggled against my thighs for warmth.

Then there was the time she brought a mouse into the laundry room to play with it. She threw it up in the air and then caught it over and over. Until it landed in the hamper. Then she wandered off. Someone else found it in the hamper and shrieked...

We had an arrangement over the last 10 years. She was given one nighttime snack each night at a time of her choosing. People who heard about this thought I was crazy, but it worked for us. Any time she wanted, she would come into the bedroom and make some noise - pushing the door against the wall, plucking the carpet, whatever. I'd get up, go downstairs and give her a snack. Midnight, 1 AM, 2 AM, it didn't matter. If she came in and tried to do it again, she'd get a pillow thrown at her.

She always had a loud purr. I remember her sauntering down the hall to my bedroom, purring. It sounded like a freight train as it echoed off the walls. It was beautiful.

My wife was never a cat person and Katie was affectionate in her own way, which was to say that I understood her acts of love when no one else recognized them. She knew my wife needed something special and so would come out of the house every day to say hello when my wife came home. It truly touched her that this little cat changed the way she did things to let my wife know she was loved. A few head bumps, a brief pat and that was that, time to go inside for food. Katie was still a cat, after all.

Katie was a holy terror with the vet. She tore them to shreds every time they tried to take samples of any kind. My son and I would laugh and say, "3 dead, 2 wounded. The last one managed to pull the fire alarm as he sank to the floor, unconscious from loss of blood." She was all cat, our Katie.

Incidentally, that's where I took my nom de plume. K T Cat was Katie The Cat, her full, proper name. I liked the play on words as KT sounds like Katie.

I'm running out of coherence and I'm sure you've lost interest in the whole thing. Katie and I loved each other dearly. It was hard to see her go, but at the same time, it was the right thing to do.

I'll miss her ever so much.

Her last day, spending a little time in the garden.

Bodie, the larger Catican Guard, was a loving friend to the end.